Oyster Moon - news from oyster moon

Day 3: Saturday 23rd November – Pete’ll fix it!

We woke this morning feeling very tired and a little downhearted, which has been typical of Day 3 of our longer voyages so far. The children still suffer from feeling sick and it takes the rest of us time to adjust to our watch shift patterns and going about daily activities with the boat rocking around all over the place.

To add to this, we were very low on battery power as late yesterday evening we discovered that Generator was broken. Thankfully, Pete had a good idea what the problem was. After watching a beautiful sunrise and making a breakfast of frankfurters and beans (which Jess managed to actually keep down!), Charlie went on a mission to find the required replacement part. By lunchtime, the generator was up and working again, and the children received a hands-on Science lesson in the process!


We were starting to get frustrated with our progress. Following the recommended route of heading Southwards for the best winds, had meant that the majority of the fleet were way ahead. With winds dropping, we decided to put in a starboard tack and made some good progress Westwards overnight, passing several mega fishing vessels whose lights lit up the black night sky for miles around.

Day 4: Sunday 24th November – Sail Dilemma
A much better night’s sleep was had by all. The rollers and wind waves were dropping in size and the children were starting to feel better. Jess was offered any breakfast of her choice and went for dry crackers and gherkins which were enjoyed immensely.

The mood on board was much improved and I spent some of my morning watch being entertained by a sea bird attempting to catch flying fish that were being disturbed by the boat’s wake.

Due to a change in the wind direction overnight we’d veered half a degree Northwards (30 nautical miles!), undoing most of our hard work from the previous few days.

We first attempted gull winging to alter our course further South, but this proved to be slow and very rocky. Pete, Jo and Charlie then ventured out on deck to set to work configuring the our ‘Code D’ sail, a Gennecer which is a large light sail perfect for light wind conditions. We recently purchased this sail to avoid having to motor as much as possible; something we had to do much of the way down the Portuguese coast.

We sailed like a dream all afternoon. Jo taught the children for a couple of hours – they watched a very interesting documentary on the South Pacific, followed by a Quiz, which was enjoyed by all. I got to work making a Sunday roast at Jess’ request. She was definitely starting to feel better.

Whilst we were sailing like a dream and the conditions were calm, we decided to put the Code D down in case of overnight squalls and went with the main sail, hoping that the wind didn’t change course once more.


Day 5: Monday 25th November – Genneca success!
We made good progress overnight, only veering slightly North in the early hours of the morning. With calm winds and seas, we put up the Genneca after day break and enjoyed a relaxing day sailing.


We'd tweaked our watch shift patterns which was working well and started to find the capacity for better organising life on board. We configured a lattice of blankets around the cockpit area, which made watch keeping much more bearable in the searing heat. We also set the children to work on writing a daily quiz each – a tradition we established long ago with the Hall family on our crossing from La Rochelle to Gijon.


With continued calm conditions, we braved leaving the Code D sail up into the night.